The jubilant scene seems like years ago … it's actually been less than three months.
Photos: Joseph Paterno 1926 - 2012
Nursing leg, shoulder and pelvis injuries, Paterno coached from the press box but was toasted in a postgame ceremony. Then-university president Graham Spanier and athletic director Tim Curley presented Paterno with a plaque that read: "Joe Paterno. Educator of Men. Winningest Coach. Division One Football."
If only time could have stopped, on his legacy, on that last Saturday in October.
But it didn't, and the rest is a different history.
Less than two weeks after his crowning moment, Paterno was fired in the torrid, horrid middle of one of the worst unfolding scandals in sports history.
Never has 61 years of largely unimpeachable work, in one workplace, with one wife, unraveled so quickly and alarmingly.
The "winningest coach" never got a shot for victory No. 410. The next Saturday, an off weekend, the grand jury investigating the case unveiled a jaw-dropping indictment of former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. The child sex abuse charges were salacious, scathing and damning.
Curley, one of the men who handed Paterno his plaque, faced charges of failing to report allegations of criminal conduct as well as perjury and saw his Penn State career abruptly end. Spanier was ousted as president.
Paterno, the most powerful man in town for more than four decades, was left to unsuccessfully bargain for the last few weeks of his brilliant career.
It didn't work.
This was worse than a horror movie: It was "Plan 9 From Outer Space."
So this, really, is how it ends?
Paterno's death leaves open wounds and unanswered questions. He was never implicated directly in the scandal but had to stand in judgment against himself — the high man of character he had proved to be since arriving on campus in 1950.
The bottom line in this scandal is now the forever nagging gray area: Mike McQueary, a former Penn State quarterback and graduate assistant, had told Paterno in 2002 that he saw Sandusky molest a young boy in the locker room showers.
Paterno did what was legally required: He reported the alleged incident to his superior. And this is where the story disconnected from anything we would have imagined.
Paterno had built an empire on integrity, accountability and doing things the right way. He called it his Grand Experiment, the idea you could win big without sacrificing ethics or dignity.
L.A. for less than the price of sunblock. 
